Something the Darkness Can't Take From You
by noenigma
Summary: The things that keep the horror of the job from destroying them.
1. Music

**Something the Darkness Can't Take From You**

_This one comes at Morse from an Endeavour angle—not sure if that makes it an Endeavour/Morse/Lewis crossover or what…_

Disclaimer: Purely for fan purposes—no copyright infringement intended.

**Chapter One: Music**

Standing on the rooftop with Thursday, begging him for something to hold onto when the job began eating away at everything he'd ever held dear.

"How do you do it? Leave it at the front door?"

And Thursday's words…

"Because I have to! A case like this'll tear the heart right out of a man." And then seeing the pain that had surely been threatening to spill out of the young constable Morse had been, his old inspector had pushed through his own struggles with all that they'd just gone through up on that roof and throughout that entire nightmare of a case and said, "Find something worth defending."

"I thought I had," Morse said. Only the killer, the first serial killer of either of their careers, had taken it, sullied it, used it for his own evil means…coming so closely on top of that first case he'd worked with Thursday which had culminated in the arrest for murder of one of Morse's favorite opera singers, Morse had to wonder if music was all he'd believed it to be.

"Music?" Thursday asked. "I suppose music is as good as anything. Go home, put your best record on… loud as it'll play and with every note you remember that's something that the darkness couldn't take from you."

And Morse had. Not just that day, but so many days, so many cases throughout the years. Oh, he'd never managed to leave work at the door. Always, his thoughts and his reactions and his emotions had threaded their ways in and out of the soaring movements…brooding Strange called it. And brooding it was often enough, but it was also what held Morse together, kept the darkness at bay, kept the job from tearing his heart right out of him.

But, Lewis? Morse followed Max's pointed look to where his sergeant stood with his back to them, already taking statements, already putting behind him what Morse was still painfully and unsuccessfully swallowing down.

He gave a soft sniff, "Lewis? Sergeant Lewis is made of sterner stuff than all that, Max…this won't have troubled him overly much."

"You think so?" Max said, shaking his head and doing that odd chortling thing of his that said quite clearly he thought Morse wasn't all that clever.

Morse frowned at him and then glanced back at his sergeant. It had been a difficult case. Ugly, painful, disturbing for all even peripherally touched by it…but, no.

Lewis, as though sensing Morse's eyes on him, turned and caught his eye in that very practical, very useful way he had about him of always being ready to get on with whatever needed doing. When he saw Morse had nothing for him to be getting on with, he turned back to his interview, and there'd been nothing shadowed in the sergeant's face, nothing glittering like unshed tears in the corners of his eyes.

Morse stifled a rueful chuckle of his own and told his old colleague, "No, Max. I don't think so; I know so."

There had never been a day when Lewis had turned to him as he'd turned to Thursday and begged to know how to keep going. Never been a case that had brought Lewis down in the way cases had used to get to Morse himself—well, as cases, like this one, could still do. And Morse, until this very moment, had never wondered about that.

But then, Lewis had something worth defending in his family...something that the dark could not take from him. And that would have been instinctive and total, not something someone would have had to teach him. And Lewis had worked his way up from the streets, seen things along the way from PC to DS that Morse, coming in as he had, had never seen…in a way, Lewis had grown up in the force, joining up before he'd been much more than a boy, hardened to it all while Morse had come in too late for that. If there had been a time early on when the job had eaten into the very soul of the young Lewis, he would have found his way long before he'd come to Morse. It would have been someone else pushing aside their own pain to help the young Lewis deal with his.

But, Morse couldn't really imagine there'd ever been the need. Lewis had what was surely an inborn resilience, a way of looking at the world expecting it to look back at him and smile. A confidence that life was good and he had a place in it…

Morse shook himself, nodded a farewell at Max's back as he'd turned back to his corpse, and strode up to Lewis. Putting his hand on his sergeant's shoulder, not because Lewis needed the physical comfort but because Morse needed that reassurance that the sergeant really was fit enough to not be sent off home or hospital, he said, "Lewis, I'm off then. You'll finish up here?"

"Yes, Sir," Lewis assured him, his voice strong and confident.

"Right. Tomorrow then?" Morse said, already moving off to his car.

"Yes, Sir, tomorrow then," Lewis said to his departing back.

And when Morse arrived the next morning, a bit later than normal, but they'd solved their case the night before so why not? and sadly the worse for wear after the restless night he'd spent fighting off the dark and his own maudlin thoughts, Lewis was, of course, already there plowing through the paperwork, ready and willing to dash off down the hall for Morse's tea. Chatty and sparky and untouched by it all…and it was only Max's passing comment that made Morse pause for an instant and consider the improbability that even the most insensitive of sorts wouldn't have been touched by what they'd dealt with over the last three days…and Lewis was far from insensitive. Too caring by half, Morse sometimes thought in exasperation when the sergeant spent too much time sympathizing with the bereaved instead of getting what information they needed and getting on with the investigation.

When Lewis returned with the tea and a 'There you are, Sir. A nice cup of hot tea will soon put you to rights', Morse sipped at the tea and said, "Lewis…how are you today—I mean after…well."

The sergeant blinked at him and gave a small shrug, "I'm fine, Sir…thanks." Morse read the surprise on the sergeant's face and kicked himself for even asking. Of course, Lewis was fine. Foolish of Morse to think even for a minute that he might not be. He drank his tea and dismissed Max's concerns for the last time.


	2. Val

**Chapter Two: Val**

Lewis turned from Morse's frowning intensity and strode over to stand looking out of the window. He peered into his own steaming cup and pursed his lips, wondering what Morse wanted him to say…_actually, Sir, I spent the night dead sick with it all and I'm ready to chuck it all in? of course not, Sir, I'm black and blue in body and spirit and it took half a bottle of brandy to set me right? I've seen worse, Sir, though I can't think when…I reckon I'll get over it given enough time. _Well, the chief inspector wouldn't hear any of that from him—though they were true enough, so was his 'I'm fine, Sir'. All how you chose to look at it; Lewis had determined a long time ago that no matter how things got he'd not let the job destroy him. Come what may, he'd be fine in the end. Had to be. For Val…

"_It's all right, Laddie…night's over for us. It's all over," Inspector Graves had told him as he'd driven them away from that late, late night bereavement call to the girl's parents. Lewis' first bereavement call, his first night on the streets, his first night really on the job. _

_Lewis had somehow held everything together until it was all over. No choice, was there? His job to hold it together, to stay with the girl where she'd been dumped and left to die while Graves had run for help, blowing his whistle over and over again, because he couldn't trust his very green recruit's knowledge of the unfamiliar town to get help fast enough to make any difference. So, Lewis' job to stay there beside the girl and hold her hand and listen to her last words because it had been far too late to make any difference before the two officers had ever stumbled over her there in the dark. His job to murmur back soft, gentle words to quiet her terror as the life faded out of her. Then his job to wait there until the inspector returned; to give a clear and detailed and coherent statement to the officers that followed on Grave's tail. And his job because 'I'm that sorry, lad…but you were there to see her off, and her parents…' Yeah. So his job to try to give her parents as gentle a report as he could, so they knew she hadn't died alone, so they knew she'd thought of them as she'd passed. _

_But…once it was all over. He couldn't shake the horror of it all…couldn't do anything but sit there in the squad car Graves had commandeered and shake. The night might have been over for them, but it was hours before day would arrive and the darkness and chill ate into Lewis' bones—his uniform jacket lay beside him on the seat, but he'd taken it off and lain it over the girl and couldn't face putting it back on; the car heater did its best to warm him but its heat couldn't reach him. Nothing could he'd thought; it was all too much and he'd never dig his way out from under it._

_But, he'd been wrong, because there'd been Val waiting for him at that end of that car ride, white and strained, shaking in her nightgown, depending on him, needing him to be okay. And he'd known then that if he fell under the horror of it—he'd take her with him. _

_So he'd dug himself out from the darkness of that night—clinging to her, depending on her as much as she depended on him, and she'd seen him right. That night and more nights than he cared to remember in the years since. As long as he had her—he was fine even if there was the inevitable rough spots along the way. _

Lewis sniffed quietly to himself and turned back to his desk—Morse was lost in the day's crossword puzzle and there were the reports to type up.


	3. Something Yet To Be Found

**Chapter Three: Something Yet to Be Found**

Lewis standing at the bridge trying to come to grips with the fact Hathaway wouldn't be staying on after he was gone….it shouldn't have surprised him or shaken him, but it did. There should have been something he'd been able to give the young sergeant to keep the job from wearing him down through the years, from tearing him apart and spitting him out. And, he had tried. A bit late and all, but he'd told Hathaway he needed a partner to see him through; having Val, that was what had gotten him through all those early years.

And he'd seen, once she was gone, how quickly the dark moved in to fill the vacuum her death had left in his life—he'd thought he'd been lost to it, but then…Laura. But, that didn't happen for everyone. Saying Hathaway needed someone wasn't finding him just the right person. That had been beyond Lewis' abilities or job mandate.

And, in the end, surely, every man had to find whatever it was he needed to see him through for himself…and who was Lewis to say Hathaway was wrong to get out before it was too late if he'd never found whatever that was. He certainly didn't want the job to turn Hathaway into a brooding old man, home alone, listening to his music, and drinking himself to an early death.

Morse had taught him so many things, and Lewis had soaked most of them in with an eager willingness but that…Lewis had thought that was one thing he wanted no part of. But, Lewis had almost become that old man in those dark, empty days, months, and years after he'd lost Val. Always before he'd been able to see the good in life and choose not to wallow in the bad—and it was a choice. A decision made to not let the darkness cast a dark, threatening cloud over his life—to always look for the silver lining and not get drawn into the blackness of despair. It hadn't been a hard choice to make with Val beside him and the kiddies small enough to need him. But with the grief and sadness overwhelming him after…after she was gone and they were grown—well, it had seemed beyond him to get up in the morning let alone choose to accept what had happened and get on with his own life.

Without her, it hadn't been easy after all. But…somehow, with Laura waiting for him—her mischievous grin as bright as the sun itself-the dark hadn't managed to steal it all from him; somehow, though he couldn't say how exactly, he'd managed to break loose from its strangling grip and come out into the sunshine.

But, had he left his sergeant back there in the dark? Fighting demons as much from his past as those from the job? If so…well, the lad was spot on leaving before it was too late.

Drinking that pint with Lewis as they'd hashed out 'Robbie' and 'James' and tried to find a footing outside of the inspector/sergeant relationship they'd only ever known, Hathaway had felt only relief in Lewis' acquiescence to his decision. He knew Lewis wasn't pleased with it. Was, in fact, deeply unsettled and disappointed in it. As though it mattered whether Hathaway stuck with the job or not. Which, along with Innocent's equally unhappy reaction, was the only thing that made him question if he really wasn't making the best decision. He'd struggled with it for so long through the years he'd been on the force that finally knowing it was settled had been a huge relief in itself…one that felt supremely right in every other way. Get out. Get out now, before the job embedded itself ever deeper into his spirit until he could no longer tell where it ended and he began. Until he couldn't see past it to glimpse even a shred of innocence in the men and women he passed in the streets—only the guilty, the liars, and the murderers. Get out while he still cared.

But, standing there, after his long trek ending just that smallest bit short of his intended destination, Hathaway took in a long breath and let it out in a resigned sigh. The peace he'd come all this way to find he suddenly knew wasn't in the old, old church almost within his sight, but back in Oxford, back where he'd begun his journey, back where he belonged. Because it did matter—the job. Someone did have to look evil in the eye and say 'here it stops' or there would be no innocents in the streets. He might hate the job, hate what it did to him, hate what it made him and what it made him see, but…peace came only in doing what must be done. And, somehow, policing had become that for him.

Just as well, Innocent had insisted on filling out his forms as a temporary leave of absence instead of the permanent termination he'd agitated for. He turned around and began to retrace his steps.


End file.
